Medical center expands for more out-patient treatments

JEFFERSON CITY – The ribbon cutting ceremony was scheduled for Thursday morning for the expansion to Capital Region Medical Center (CRMC) in the Jefferson City area. The center cost $38 million to add 115,000 square foot of more health services.

The center focused on putting all specialty providers around Jefferson City in one building. Currently, services that have been moved to the center are orthopedics, therapy, ENT and audiology, and neurology. Lindsay Huhman, CRMC Director of PR/Marketing, said having everything under one roof will help the community.

“What we’ve tried to do, and what we’ve accomplished, is consolidating many of our specialty providers'" she said. “We’re also adjacent to the hospital and that helps the physicians get from their clinical space to the hospital space very easily.”

With the way the center is built, Huhman said, it helps physicians collaborate on patient care. The new center also offered the opportunity to upgrade existing facilities. Huhman said, as less patients stay in hospital for care, the center needs to provide other ways to offer health services to the community.

“Over the years, across the industry, in-patient numbers, meaning patients that stay in hospitals, have gone down, and more and more care is moving to an out-patient service,” she said. “Overall, it also helps them lower their cost for health care as well.”

She said the expansion will allow the center to help more people in the community.

“We’re working very hard to improve access and that really what this does,” she said. “You know, that time-to-appointment is very important and we’re working hard to make sure people can get into there to see their doctors.”

The center overlooks the Missouri Capitol and Huhman said it is reachable for almost everyone in town.

“We’re in the heart of the community, and we do feel like the community hospital, and we’re doing everything we can to improve access for the community that we serve,” Huhman said. “High-quality health care, that’s our ultimate goal. It’s our mission to improve the health and wellness of the community we serve and we feel like this is a huge asset and avenue to help us accomplish that.”

Currently, CRMC is moving a clinic into the center every week and the process in expected to be completed by mid-December. CRMC will hold a public open house on Sunday and offer tours of the new building.